Page 58 of Wolf Betrayed

I won’t break.

I am strong. I am Charlotte Jamenson. I am mated to Bram and Shane. I am Pack. I am loved. I am me.

I will not break.

“You’re also the daughter of Maddox Jamenson, isn’t that right?” Montag slid his finger down her cheek, and bile rose in her throat.

“Fuck you,” she spat.

His grip tightened. “That’s not the kind of experiments we do here. Fortunately for you. And I think you would do well to remember who came before you. Isn’t that right? Maddox has a scar right on his cheek, one that never healed because of some magic or whatever you wolves call it. Well, we don’t have magic, but I have something special that will make sure you never heal.” He studied her face, his own impassive. “That is, if you live long enough for it to scar.”

She wouldn’t let them kill her, wouldn’t let them take everything she had.

Shane and Bram would come for her.

Her family would come for her.

And damn it, she would save herself, as well.

She thrashed under the straps, putting all her weight and strength into the struggle, trying to break free. The others in the room might have weapons, but she was a weapon. Even weak, if she were fast enough—and damn it, she was always fast—she’d be able to take them out even if they hurt her in the process.

She just needed to get out of the prison they held her in.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her wolf in her voice. “Do you get off on cutting up women who can’t fight back?”

Montag looked like he wanted to hit her but held himself back. Instead, he released her and wiped his hand over her clothes as if he couldn’t stand the scent of her on his skin. Good, because she wanted nothing to do with him.

“I want the man you call your mate.”

His gaze locked with hers when her eyes widened. “Yes, I know much more than you think. I saw the way you leaned into him and that other man on the feed when you blew up my compound. You think I’d have left it without someone watching it beyond those guards you took out? You aren’t as smart as you think you are. I want Shane back, and now that I have you, he’ll come right to me. I would have preferred not to have to bother with you, but the man refused to leave the den. He didn’t even budge when we tested the wards.”

He had to be talking about the bomb they’d dropped right on top of the den that the wards had barely been able to hold back. But even as her mind worked through that, she could only think of one thing.

Shane.

Montag wanted Shane.

Of course,the man wanted Shane. Her mate was the only thing left of Montag’s experiments. At least, that was what they had thought before, and from the manic way the former General was acting now, she had a feeling the Packs had been right. Montag needed Shane’s blood to continue his experiments.

Only the other man didn’t know the serum hadn’t worked. It had only brought Shane closer to what he could have been if he’d been bitten. The whole process had almost killed him multiple times, and the ramifications of a man-made serum being introduced into the Pack bonds weren’t even known yet. This human, this Montag, had forever changed the Packs, yet he didn’t even know it.

She wouldn’t be telling him, though. Giving him that much information would be deadly.

And if they didn’t take care of him and make a stand, she knew her people would never have a fighting chance. They would forever be throwing new ways to torture at them and take them out in any way they could.

“While we wait for Shane to show up so I can get what I need from his blood, we might as well begin.”

He tilted his head, studying her, and she wanted to punch him in his too smug face. “This should be interesting.” But he didn’t stay to see what would become of her. Instead, he left, taking one of his men with him.

Maddox and Ellie had been through something like this before when they’d first been mated, and their captivity was how they’d found Charlotte and saved her life. When the human male put the collar around her neck, chaining her to the wall behind her but still keeping her on the table, she knew she’d come full circle.

But she wouldn’t let the others save her this time.

Instead, she would save herself.

It was the only way to make sure Montag never got his hands on Shane.

The woman who had been standing at the edge of the table came forward then, her hand outstretched, and Charlotte held back a growl. The knife in her hand was coated with something, and she couldn’t sense what it was, but it couldn’t be good.

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